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OUR BLOG HAS MOVED!

We've folded our blog into our main web site! Don't worry, we're still around for all your Japanese street fashion needs - in fact, we're only growing! For all new information, please visit us at https://www.tokyorebel.com and click on the blog/news link.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

UPDATE: Group order now closed! If you sent an order and haven't heard from us yet, please let us know ASAP.

Two tasty bits of Victorian maiden news today - a new batch of reserve items (including shoes!) and a group order.

Up for reserve are a new run of the Victorian ribbon pumps, the Gathers Frill Ribbon dress, and three items in the new Fairy Tale Doll series, including a skirt, blouse and dress. The reserve period on these items expires January 4. Check them out!

Also!

We're just about to place a new order with VM ourselves for our store, so now is your chance to get your special orders for any of their current items in. Here's how it works:

Visit Victorian maiden's "shopping" page. You'll see a list of new items there, along with item categories on the left. Their web site is very slow, but just keep refreshing. You can order most items that are not listed as sold out in any of those categories. A very few of their items are available only in their Press Room - this is the warning message on those items:

Don't worry if you can't read that; we'll tell you if you order something that's Press Room only. But we're just giving you the info if you want to look yourself.

Also, if you see this on your item......then we probably can't get it. You can still try, and we'll ask them, but it's very unlikely.

If you see this on your item...

Then you can ask us and we'll ask VM. That means "low stock". It's about a 50/50 chance.

We will email you back with our US price on the item, which is usually just the Japanese price at current exchange rates plus our estimate of the shipping costs from Japan. If you agree to the price, then we will invoice you for a 30% deposit via PayPal. If you prefer to pay in our store, we're happy to do that as well. If you prefer to pay 100% up front, that's fine with us too. We will invoice you for the remaining balance when we receive the item(s), and we expect full payment within 48 hours. As a special this time, if you order over $200 worth of merchandise through this group order, your shipping within the US will be a flat $8.95 regardless of weight. We will also ship internationally, but we will need to figure out international shipping costs on a case by case basis.

THIS ORDER WILL CLOSE ON JANUARY 4 AT 10PM EST.

We've extended the group order one day so we can send our group and reserve orders at the same time.

Also, don't forget that in preparation for getting some new stock in, we're running a clearance sale on many of our current VM dresses and skirts! 20% off our regular prices! See what's available. The more we sell, the more new stuff we'll get.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Some of you have been watching in horror as our SEX POT ReVeNGe section was decimated this month, what with the NY Times article and Christmas. They're a very popular brand, and we have a hard time keeping their clothes in stock.

Well, we've got a bunch of new stuff coming either late this week or very early next (it's in the air right now). And probably even more coming soon after that. Included in the shipment are a few surprises. A couple we will announce later. But we'll announce this one now:

YES, we will have the 2010 winter Happy Packs!

SPR themselves are already sold out of these - we cleaned out their remaining stock.

There are three happy pack types, each containing a different full outfit (including pants, a shirt, a jacket/parka/sweatshirt, some kind of accessory and a bag) and two sizes: M and L. Each pack contains more than $300 worth of clothes if purchased separately (and probably more like $400 once shipping is factored in). We will be selling them for $160. They're quite heavy, so some of that price is our shipping cost, and you'd probably pay more ordering straight from SPR (if you still could).

Now, this is a very special thing. Some of you may know that a certain "other" retailer had the 2009 lucky packs last year, but it's very unusual for any brand to sell their lucky (or happy) packs through retailers. They're already selling these clothes for a loss, so selling them wholesale to stores usually doesn't make much sense. We're very lucky to have these, and we were only able to get an extremely limited number. We may not even be able to get these up on our web site before selling out in our store. We expect them to go very, very quickly. We would have ordered more if we could have.

Now, there are a few rules:

1. You can choose a size, but not a type. That's why most brands call them "lucky" packs - what you actually get is a surprise.

2. We will not be taking reservations for these, by email or otherwise.

3. There are no returns on these, for any reason. You take your chances with a lucky pack.

4. We cannot open any pack before we sell it.

Now, what have we got for our customers who aren't from around here and are worried about missing out on a happy pack? Don't worry, we've got plenty of other stuff coming in the same shipment for quick addition to our web site, including a bunch of new t-shirts, handbags, a restock of the Royal Border hats and scarves, and more. Unfortunately no more winter coats, military or otherwise - there are no more to be had! With temps now in the 50's in Tokyo, winter coats only go on sale there for a very short time and SPR is already sold out for the season. Gotta get stuff while you can!

We have more surprises to announce later, so watch for that soon. And we'll be sure to announce when all this stuff arrives.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Today we received a bunch of new and restocked Atelier-Pierrot items including the extremely popular corset bustle skirts, type I and type II petticoats (in both black and white), a new jumper skirt that's normally only available in their stores, and more!

Apologies for the quality of the cell phone pix - we have no real camera at the store today. Yeah, that means you'll need to wait until at least tomorrow night if you want to order any of these through our web site :( but they're available in our store right now! I can tell you definitively that these pictures do not do justice to any of these items. We'll take real pics soon.

First, we got bustle corset skirts in purple taffeta, black taffeta, red taffeta and china red. Yes, you'll notice if you've been following us for a while that these are all new colors and/or material. These are all selling for $239.

The red and purple taffeta skirts do not have a pattern on them. The black taffeta skirt has a dark purple rose pattern on the corset only - here's an attempt at showing it:

The china red skirt is pictured above and has a pattern throughout.

We also restocked the "Romeo and Juliet" print skirts that we sold out of immediately the last time we had them:

We have these in both red and black. They're $199.

(That photo's a proper one we took the last time we had them.)

Now, about this:

Our picture is not the best, so look at this jumper skirt on Atelier-Pierrot's blog here and you'll see how cool it is. One thing we noticed - the production version of this jumper skirt has red ribbons and bows, not the black ones in their pre-production photos. But they are removable (the ribbon buttons on, the bow pins on), so you could replace them with black if you wanted to.

This jumper skirt is $229.

As a special bonus, purchase this jumper skirt and you will receive a folding standup Atelier-Pierrot mirror:

We cannot guarantee a color. You'll get what we still have :)

We also restocked the black swallowtail blouse, which previously sold out before we could put up a product page for it. It's $169.

We'll do our best to post all of these items to our web site as soon as we can. We cannot guarantee that none of these items will sell out before we do, however - our store customers have dibs by default, just because we can put items on a rack faster than we can take photos and write up a description. So if you're in the Manhattan area and interested in any of these, come on down and take a look. Otherwise, watch our web site starting late tomorrow night (or subscribe to our new product RSS feed).

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Just in time for Christmas, yesterday we received a nice shipment of PUTUMAYO items. Included in this shipment:

Cat-themed parkas, complete with:

Cat ears!

Also, new mini-hats!

The return of the Key Lace Coat, this time with white lace. PUTUMAYO no longer has this coat with black lace.

A new style of the popular cat in a window one-piece, this time in warm velveteen for winter, and with a fully shirred top. A poofy petticoat is definitely recommended for this. This is only $145, which is very reasonable for a Japanese brand one-piece. (The non-velveteen version was $125, but you do pay a little more for velveteen.) These can be worn with the ribbon in either front or back, depending on the look you want and how tight you want to make it. One nice thing about this one-piece is that it is a larger size than most, and it's shirred all the way around. It'll fit almost anybody.

New tote bags! These also come with a little dangling charm, that you can kind of see hanging from a strap on the one on the left (under the price tag).

Not pictured but also in stock: cat window skirts (same print as the one-piece above, different colors and in skirt form), a restock of the popular black bunny earrings, the Etrange tote bag and Chess Crest 3 way bag.

And sorry - we did order some Cat Ear Pompom Coats, but they sold out before they even got here. Dang, you guys just love those cat ears! We'll try to get more again, but it might be another couple of weeks.

Everything else above is in stock right now, and will be added to our web site soon.

UPDATE: This stuff is going fast! Cat ear coats are gone, cat ear parkas are almost gone. We just added the parkas to our web site today and they're almost sold out - if you want one, get it now!

Friday, December 18, 2009

This month's main theme and feature is "new punk rock style" - lots of new coords from brands like Algonquins and SEX POT ReVeNGe. Lolita is represented too, with a new genre KERA's promoting called "Candy Lolita" - a mix of casual sweet and punk Lolita.

On sale now in our store! $9.50. Back issues of volume 137 are now available for $7.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

It's crunch time - only a little over a week left until Christmas, and only a couple days until we'll no longer be able to ship in time for delivery by the 24th. If you're new to our site, check out parts 1 and 2 of our holiday gift guide, covering big ticket items and mainstream gifts. For those of you looking for stocking stuffers or small items for friends or relatives, read on!

One caveat: many of our smaller items are only available in our store. Frankly speaking, we get in more new products each month than we physically have time to post to our web site. So some of the items listed below can only be purchased in person.

Now, some ideas!

Hair accessories by Innocent World - $18-$29

We have a nice selection of rose corsage hair clips, rose headbands and pearl bow headbands by Innocent World in a variety of colors. If there's one thing Lolitas never seem to have enough of, it's hair accessories, so these are almost always a safe small gift. You can also kick it up a notch with the Dreamy Doll House barrettes and Alice bands from Angelic Pretty - we are almost sold out of these and will not be able to restock them.

Socks by Innocent World and Angelic Pretty - $18-$31

Socks are another item that's tough to order by itself from overseas due to shipping costs, so many western Lolitas don't have enough. We carry both below the knee and over-knee socks from both Angelic Pretty and Innocent World in our New York store, in a variety of styles and colors. These are not currently available online.

The perfect Japanese punk stocking stuffer, this chain is styled to look like the iconic "R" lock and chain worn by Ren in the manga, anime and film NANA. It features the "R" on one side and the Sex Pot logo on the other. We go through these in various colors all the time, one or two colors sell out and another comes in; we currently have it in pink lettering (red is pictured), which has always been the most popular color of this item for us.

Magazines and Mooks - $7-$20

Magazines are great stocking stuffers, and mooks (magazine/books) make great small gifts that you can wrap and put under the tree. We have the full line of Indexcomm-produced street fashion magazines and mooks, including KERA, KERA Maniax and the Gothic & Lolita Bible. The text may be in Japanese, but fashion is a universal language and the pictures tell the story.

SEX POT extends their design chops to produce these cool wristbands in either cloth or studded leather varieties. We have a few of these on our web site - we have more in our store. Alternatively, for a basic punk wristband and the most inexpensive one we carry, check out Algonquins' skull wristbands in either black or white.

Large tote bag by SEX POT ReVeNGe - $15

These popular nylon tote bags are HUGE! You could put your whole life in one of these things. They're also durable and bold in both color and graphics. Available in both red and blue for an unbelievable price. In store only.

Nobody can have too many t-shirts, and why not give one unique in design? Both SPR and MAXICIMAM make some of the coolest shirts you're likely to see from Japan or anywhere else, and for reasonable prices too. We do sell a lot of these, so not all sizes may always be available.

For any small accessory gift purchased in our store, we are happy to add a small gift box for $1. Most small accessories from Japan do not come in any sort of packaging, so we're responding to your request for a small box for items like rings and earrings.

Remember to read our holiday schedule guide for Christmas shopping info! We hope this series of posts has helped make your holiday shopping a little easier this year.

We're getting ready to place our next order with SEX POT ReVeNGe - most likely by tomorrow (Thursday) night. If you have any special orders that you'd like to place, now is the time to do it. Don't wait - our (admittedly optimistic) hope is to have this shipment by Christmas, so we are going to do this quickly. If we don't have your deposit by the time we place the order, your items will not be on it.

First, we are restocking Military Coats and Royal Border Knit Caps and Mufflers, but you can still special order these if you want to absolutely ensure that you'll get what you want. Otherwise, there is always a risk of another sell-out, especially of specific colors or sizes.

Our special order process is the same. If you see something you want on SPR's web site, send us an email with the following info:

Subject: SPR Special OrderYour nameYour email address for PayPal invoicing (or let us know if you want to pay the deposit in store)Your phone # (just in case)The item nameAny color/options you wantA direct link to the item page

(No, at the moment we don't believe we can get those calendars on their homepage, but we'll see.)

We take a 30% non-refundable deposit to order your merchandise. You can pay 100% if you just want everything done - we surely don't mind. If you'd like to do this all in our store, you can download and print out our special order form to fill out and bring in with your deposit.

Our pricing is generally the Japanese price at the current exchange rate plus our shipping costs. We will quote you a price before invoicing. (Again, sorry for the short notice - this whole process needs to be pretty quick this time.)

Note that sale items are tricky. We may not be able to get them, and we may or may not be able to offer the sale price if we can. It depends on what SPR charges us.

We expect the deposit to be paid within 24 hours of invoicing, and we expect full payment for your merchandise within 1 week of our receipt of it.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Don't ruin Christmas! Get your orders in before the recommended deadline.

First, we have just added a new Express Mail shipping option for those of you who need to receive your orders with maximum speed before the holidays. (See our policies page for a full rate table.) Note that we do not guarantee delivery dates. Express Mail shipments will generally arrive the next day after shipment, and we generally ship within 1-2 days of receiving an order. Selecting Express Mail will not guarantee that your item will arrive the next day. But it will guarantee you will receive the order one or two days earlier than you otherwise would have.

We will do our best to ship all items as fast as we can - we're people too, so we don't want anyone to receive their Christmas gifts late.

Again, while not guaranteed, we believe that orders placed by the 17th should make delivery within the United States by the 24th. Use the Express Mail option if you want to be safe.

Orders placed after this date may make it by Christmas. But the chances dwindle each day. The last possible ordering date to have any chance of Christmas delivery is December 22, using Express Mail only.

Note that we will have a shipping freeze from December 23-28. We will not ship any packages during this time. We will do our best to ship any Express Mail orders placed on the 22nd that evening (for pickup on the morning of the 23rd).

International customers should order ASAP for any chance of Christmas delivery. It generally takes about 10 days for international shipments to arrive.

You may wonder if we're planning to restock before Christmas, after our pre-holiday and post-NY Times article rush. It does take a little time to get things shipped from Japan, so we will have a limited number of items restocked by then, including the popular Innocent World ear muffs, Atelier-Pierrot bustle skirts (in various colors), Putumayo Cat Ear coats, and more. But other popular items will not be restocked by Christmas, including the SEX POT ReVeNGe military coat (we do have some black ones left in large), pink or white border knit hat and scarves, Angelic Pretty wallets, and various other items. If you're looking for anything particular for a gift that we're sold out of, feel free to email us to find out when and if we expect more stock.

Friday, December 11, 2009

We've run through some ideas for the middle price point, and soon we'll give you some last minute stocking stuffer ideas. But today, Mr. or Ms. Big Spender, it's time to splurge - to get that loved one of yours what they really want this holiday season (or buy something for yourself!). Whatever the style, we've got something for everyone.

These heavy winter coats are one of our most popular items. With a soft but substantial feel, it's obvious from the beginning that these are quality coats, and every detail - from the zip-up collar to the fur-lined hood to the below-waist length - is designed for warmth. Hurry - we are already sold out of black in medium, and cross check in large (update: medium now too)! We expect to get more, but probably not before Christmas.

Believe it or not, we still have a selection of these two series in stock, including pink and black jumper skirts and skirts. Don't miss your chance to buy these prints, because once they're gone, they're gone! As a special bonus, anyone who orders the Star Night Theater pink jumper skirt will receive a free Milky-chan the Fawn makeup case. You'll also be eligible for our free poster offer to anyone who purchases a Lolita skirt or jumper skirt.

Innocent World makes some extremely high quality synthetic leather items that you'd be hard-pressed to tell from the real thing. Their pochettes and handbags are tasteful and classy and could easily be used every day at work or school, not just as part of a Lolita outfit. We carry their handbags in both brown and off-white, and their pochettes in both black and pink. The pochettes will be posted to our web site soon - they're available in store right now.

We're currently having a 20% off blowout sale on all in-stock Victorian maiden dresses, including this beautiful floral print. Victorian maiden dresses are all very limited in number, highly coveted in Japan and elegant enough to double as regular formal wear. You're never going to get a better price than this on a new Victorian maiden dress.

Don't forget blouses too! We have a selection of blouses in a variety of styles and colors.

It may not get you through the 22 degree F weather here in New York right now, but for those of you in slightly warmer climates, this is a parka that could last you all winter long. The purple faux fur and glitter-infused back graphic are eye-catching enough, but what our customers seem to particularly enjoy is the word patches, which include random phrases like "I got jiggy with it" and "Shady son of a ditch".

Of course, there are always gift certificates that can be put to any use in our store, including special orders.

Watch in the coming days for Part 3 of our holiday gift guide - stocking stuffers, small items and last-minute gifts!

Welcome to those of you coming here after reading about us in the NY Times! The article was online yesterday and is in the actual newspaper today. We're obviously happy for the attention that the article is bringing upon us, and we hope that some of you will like what we do enough to become regular customers. We know the article was not intended as a promotional piece, but we actually thought it was fair and well written.

Some of you might still have questions about the fashions we sell (although the Times reporter did pick some good links for the web version of the story), and we recommend reading our Street Style page if you'd like some more info on Japanese street fashion. One of the things we do wish the reporter had talked more about is our non-Lolita clothing - Japanese street fashion is not just Lolita, and we are not just a Lolita store.

You can also check out our extensive FAQ, which has tons of good info too.

If you want to keep up with what we're doing, you can follow us here or on Twitter, Facebook or LiveJournal. And don't forget to sign up for our mailing list! For our next email blast, we will have an offer exclusive to mailing list subscribers.

Most importantly, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us. If you are native Japanese, feel free to email us in Japanese.

One thing - we are selling a lot of items right now, so if you like anything you see on our web site, we recommend grabbing it while you can. We restock when possible, but most Japanese street fashion is limited by nature - we often can only get any given item once. We will be receiving new stock soon, but it will mostly be new and different items.

Victorian maiden is reissuing three of their most popular dresses ever in new colors and new fabrics. As usual, we've been authorized to accept a very limited number of reservations - get yours in before it's too late. Be sure to read the reservation terms before placing your order. The reserve period on these dresses expires December 12 at 11PM EST.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

We haven't talked a lot about it yet here, but it's the elephant in the room... Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or whatever you happen to celebrate at this time of year. What to get that special someone?? We're going to put together a quick little three-part series of posts that'll hopefully help you with some ideas of what to get that family member, significant other or BFF.

Parts 2 and 3 will deal with both the big ticket and then the smaller items that you might think about as stocking stuffers or last minute gifts, but we'll start where most people are probably looking, that "not too hot, not too cold" middle price point. We've got a lot of great stuff there in all styles. For instance:

We just added this to our site today. SPR's custom shirts are always crowd-pleasers, and this is definitely one of the most eye-catching we've ever had. You can't not get noticed in a shirt like this. Available in medium and large.

For those who like this look but want a little more winter warmth, we still have a limited number of Grotesque Custom long-sleeve shirts as well - also $75. And don't forget about all of our regular t-shirts too!

Of all the accessories we have, this is our favorite. Maybe we're biased, because it was made for us and is the only one exactly like it in the world. It's ridiculously inexpensive for a completely custom piece of jewelry from a major brand name like SEX POT ReVeNGe. It may require a strong neck to wear this thing all day, but we'd be happy just having it hanging on a wall as decoration.

And more for the Lolitas!Umbrellas/parasols from Angelic Pretty, Innocent World and MAXICIMAM - $43-$60

Some of our most popular items, it seems Lolitas can never have too many parasols of different styles and colors. All of these can be used both for sun shade and rain protection.

For both punks and Lolitas:Tote bags from PUTUMAYO, MAXICIMAM or Angelic Pretty - $16-$79

Prices on these do vary pretty greatly but most of what we carry is in the $37-$38 range. These popular carry-alls are a stylish way to show off your favorite brands but aren't so expensive that you need to worry about messing them up.

This is just a small sampling of what we have available - feel free to browse our web site or retail store for lots more! Of course, there are always gift certificates if you really can't decide!

And for those of you wondering, in-stock items generally ship within 1-2 days and will arrive 2-3 days after that, so you still have plenty of time. While we cannot guarantee a specific delivery date, we recommend ordering by the 17th if you want your packages to arrive by Christmas. We will shortly be adding an express mail option for those of you making last minute gift orders.

We told you earlier about our G&L Bible #35 poster promotion - well, the issue itself can now be purchased in our store.

As the cover alludes to, this season's issue is all about the winter colors of black and white, or as it's put in the mook, "angel" and "devil" styles. There is a lot more of gothic, kuro and shiro Lolita styles in this issue than in many of the recent ones, which have focused more heavily on sweet Lolita for spring, summer and fall.

We have this issue for sale now at $20. Don't forget that you can own the beautiful cover of this issue (minus all the advertising) with the purchase of any Lolita skirt or dress.

Oh, and by the way, we still have a few issues of G&L Bible vol. 34 left, which we're discounting to $15.

Upcoming Order Schedule

The following is our approximate schedule for future orders we plan to place with our brands, subject to change at any time. If you are interested in special ordering an item, you can use this as a guide for when to order. We recommend ordering 1-2 weeks in advance. Please email us to start a special order.